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Friday, May 23, 2014

The peasant, the decision-maker, the researcher and Participatory 3d Modelling

In the numerous bus stations in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, all passengers, arriving from other parts of the country, with their bag of worries, know where to find a sympathetic ear. Aladji Ibrahim’s steps lead him to Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, the coordinator of AFPAT, an organisation which defends the rights of Bororos pastoralists. This is the start of a story of people, animals, space and human rights with, at centre stage, an outstanding “character”: a three-dimensional model. This tool, displayed within an administrative office in Baïbokoum, almost 600 km from N’Djamena, is proving to be an unexpected medium for promoting the dialogue between peasants, local authorities, scientists and national public authorities, all concerned about climate change, reducing conflicts between faming and herding communities, territorial development, the promotion of human rights, ...

November 2011: IPACC and AFPAT co-organised, with the support of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), a workshop on pastoralism, traditional knowledge, meteorology and the development of policies for adapting to climate change. Climate governance was the focus of the debates, with around the table indigenous herders from South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and Niger, meteorologists, ministers and representatives of international organisations. This workshop culminated in the so-called N’djamena Declaration , which emphasised the urgent need to involve vulnerable groups in the development of policies to mitigate climate change. It recommended the use of participatory approaches and visualisation tools to represent the available space at community level.

July–August 2012. The Baïbokoum workshop on Participatory three-Dimensional Modelling (P3DM), with as its theme the prevention and management of conflicts between farming and herding communities, implemented the N’djamena recommendations. The combination of the knowledge of indigenous communities and the skills of experienced facilitators resulted in the production of a physical three-dimensional model depicting in detail an area of 720 sq km at a 1:10,000 scale.

One year on, what has become of the model, the result of the multi-stakeholder dialogue? The third documentary answers this question. It narrates the journey undertaken by Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim to Baïbokoum. At her destination, she meets pastoralists and edgy authorities. They would like to popularise the model with farmers, traditional community leaders and in local development programmes. But they lack the necessary technical and financial resources. Their cry from the heart is conveyed to N’Djamena by the tireless advocate of the cause of Bororos herdsman: Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim.

These online video guides and slides provide practical information and examples on designing, planning, undertaking and then analysing community maps using GIS techniques. The video guides describe in detail the steps needed to prepare for community consultations using maps, examples of collection methods and then detailed information on how convert participatory maps into digital spatial databases. Finally there are example slide resources on how you can use community mapping and PGIS to improve environmental decision making outcomes.

Thursday, May 08, 2014

Since 2010, the free and collaborative OpenStreetMap mapping community has been growing in Haiti. Backed up by the global OSM community and using innovative tools like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), it keeps improving in order to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Participatory mapping is a powerful tool to enhance the communities' resilience facing natural disasters, but also to engage an dynamic for the local development of the territory.

The project carried by COSMHA with the support of CartONG and OSM-Fr endeavor to remain extremely concrete while at the same time rising above the issues to help objectivize decision-making. It induces change from and with the local communities.

This guide, developed by John Forrester and Steve Cinderby from the University of York, UK, provides practical guidance aimed at lay users, community groups and students on whether community mapping and participatory geographic information systems are appropriate methods for the development issue you are investigating. The guide then talks you through the practical steps of designing, running and assessing community information collected using maps. The options, benefits and skills needed for of further analysis of the maps using PGIS are also discussed. Finally, alternative methods that could also be useful for community groups are also considered with links to other information sources.

Monday, May 05, 2014

In April 2013 a community consultation and a participatory planning process took place on the Island of Epi in Vanuatu. Residents assembled and populated with a rich set of data a 1:20000 scale physical 3D model of the island and its surrounding coastal waters.

This video documents how participants took ownership of the process and made informed decisions on how to address climate change challenges.

The activity has been carried out and the video produced in the framework of the GEF-UNDP-SPREP-supported Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change (PACC) project.